Of Water and Lies
by jandl
Summary: For you, the truth started in a rain of blood, and none of it was really yours. A Faith Lehane character study, covering s03.


**Fandom**: Buffy the Vampire Slayer 

**Rating**: High Teen to be safe for mentioned sexual acts

**Characters**: Faith

**Story Type**: Drabble-ish

**A/N**: My first foray into the Buffy fandom, and it pretty much sucks, but it was haunting me so it had to be written. Spoilers for "Bad Girls," "Consequences," and "Graduation Day parts 1 and 2."

**Teaser**: For you, the truth started in a rain of blood, and none of it was really yours.

**OF WATER AND LIES**

You were five years old when you first knew what you were destined to become. Not your destiny as the slayer, that came much later, but you learned something much more important than that. You learned who you are.

It started with an argument from your mother. You had been sitting in the living room of your trailer, trying to watch your small, black and white television when she had stumbled into the room, not half-enraged and more than a little bit drunk. She had knocked the television onto the floor, breaking it, screaming the whole time what a worthless waste of space you were, and it was about time you got off your lazy ass and went outside to do something useful. You tried to explain to her that it was rainy outside and in the low thirties and you hadn't received a jacket to wear yet. The only response your mother gave was to open the trailer door, pick you up by the front of your shirt, and backhand you across the face as she pushed you outside backwards. You landed on your back in the mud and could do nothing more than sit there, drenched from head to toe in the sludge with the pouring rain dripping off the end of your nose and from the tips of your long, dark hair and watch your breath make a mist in the frigid, Chicago air.

You sat in the rain for you weren't quite sure how long, letting it wash away your tears and the sting on your cheek from your mother's hand. You rationalized your mother's actions to yourself and told yourself that she really hadn't hurt you that badly, and you had never started crying, and that you weren't really afraid of terrible thunderstorms like were currently passing over your head, and you told yourself that you had always enjoyed playing in the rain anyway. You told yourself that the only wetness on your face was the rain. You stood up and let the pouring water from the sky wash away the mud and tear-stains. By the time you went in two hours later, when you were inside and had quietly hidden in your room while your mother slept off her drunken stupor, you had convinced yourself that you had never cried in the first place.

That's when you knew that you were destined to be a liar.

* * *

The first time you had sex, it had felt wrong. He was drunk and a little more than too old for you, you being 14 and he being 28. He was drunk and you were lonely and he took advantage of that. He was more than a little rough, and while you were a tough girl, it still hurt when he entered you. It wasn't romantic, and there was no love on either side. There was only skin on skin, and force, and the carnal urge to be connected with someone other than just yourself. However, as he was there with you, forcing himself in and out of you, you found that you had never felt more alone. He climaxed and rolled off of you, hurriedly changing his clothes and running out the door without saying anything.

You got off the hotel bed, cringing slightly as your abdomen contracted. There was a slight trail of blood on the sheets, and some slight fluid from where he came. The only thing you cared about was that you were disappointed. You never came. There was no pleasurable feeling in your lower stomach like all the girls at school had talked about. Maybe that only came with love. Or maybe he just wasn't good enough.

You climbed into the shower, feeling dirty and not just the little bit foolish. For not the first time in your life, you allowed the water to wash away your tears, as well as the evidence of your prior stupidity. In your anger, you screamed and punched the wall, and your fist broke through the plaster and tile, and you pulled your hand back, bloodied and numb and couldn't help but laugh.

By the time you left the hotel room, you had convinced yourself that your first experience with sex had been nothing but pleasurable on both sides, and that maybe not being in love with the person you had sex with wasn't that big a deal at all.

* * *

It had been 16 hours and you still couldn't get the blood off your hands. Just the night before, you had killed a man. You had acted on instinct and stuck a stake through an innocent man's heart. Well, maybe not so innocent, (you're not quite sure on that point yet), but still…he had been a living, breathing man. A person with a heartbeat. Not a heartless, soulless vampire. You had become a murderer.

When sense had kicked in, you had gone back to the crime scene, without B., and wrapped the body in plastic, dumping it in a place out of sight. But, not out of mind. Never out of mind. Regardless of what you told B., you did care. As much as you kept telling yourself that you didn't.

You had scrubbed your shirt for hours to get the red stains off it. You had let the water run over your hands, and let the scrub brush and the soap make your hands raw. It had taken what felt like a lifetime, but the shirt was now back to its original whiteness. But, you still saw red. Not on the shirt, which you could have thrown out if the stain had been too stubborn, but on your hands. Your hands had that stupid, red liquid on it. Another man's life was coating your hands, and no matter what you did, you couldn't seem to remove it. You had scrubbed your hands so hard that you were surprised your skin didn't fall off, but still the blood coated them.

By the time you joined the mayor--by the time you betrayed B., your one true friend--you had convinced yourself of another lie. You were fine with killing. Having blood on your hands didn't really bother you at all. You couldn't ignore the blood, but maybe, just maybe, you would eventually come to believe that there had never been a time when it hadn't been there in the first place.

* * *

As Buffy stabbed you in the stomach to save her beau, you told yourself that you didn't deserve it. After all, even if you couldn't lie to B., you had become so good at lying to yourself. You let the blood--the red water--wash away whatever sins you had lied to yourself about, and allowed yourself to fall.

The truth hit you then--just seconds before your head collided with the bed of the truck that broke you fall. You finally realized that your saving grace had damned you in the first place. The rain had spared your pain by helping you mask the fact that you had hurt at all. That rainfall and that lie had killed your innocence, just as that man, whose name you have long since forced yourself to forget, killed your virginity. You had started out good and made yourself a betrayer. Just as your head hit the wooden landing and you lost consciousness, you vowed that you would let the spilling of your blood be your absolution and that you would do anything you could to tell B. how to defeat the mayor. After all, one can't lie in their sleep, and the truth has to start somewhere. For you, the truth started in a rain of blood, and none of it was really yours.


End file.
